Having first surfaced in Seattle in 1983, they have expanded exponentially. Costco Wholesale Corporation has successfully built a family-trusted enterprise, offering bulk items at the most affordable prices. The jeweler is known for its excellent customer service, rare in a major retail chain.
Many families across the USA trust Costco, but should they be trusted for diamonds and engagement rings?
Compare Costco Diamonds & Jewelry with James Allen.
Costco is a good place to purchase diamonds and engagement rings. In the past, their diamond engagement rings came with GIA certificates, ensuring consumers of their authenticity and value.
However, Costco has fallen in this regard and does not offer certification in the lower price range (3-5K range) with their jewelry anymore—a flashing red light for all those looking to invest.
Costco offers household items, so families spend their weekends shopping. When it comes to jewelry, Costco provides a minimal range. Admittedly, they have the standard engagement rings and center stones, though none come with any prominent certification (other than a Costco certificate). Besides, no on-site professionals help with purchasing, making the latter monotonous.
Trusted enterprise: One of Costco's most significant selling points is that it is a store many families trust. When you want to make a purchase holding a price tag as hefty as an engagement ring, you will go to the one place where you know your money will be safe.
Accessibility: Costco can be found in many places, and unlike other brick-and-mortar jewelry stores, they are not confined to one place.
Pricing: Costco is known for its low prices, so one would assume the same concept applies to their engagement rings. It may be true for some engagement rings, but certainly not all.
Ready-made rings: Costco sells ready-made engagement rings. You can walk into the store, pick your favorite, and walk out with your ring ready to go.
When sold with a GIA certification, Costco offered fairly competitive pricing on their engagement rings. However, now that low-priced rings are sold without proper certificates, the quality of the rings cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to tell if the price is low or high for the quality of the ring you intend to buy.
For this reason, you would be better off purchasing a ring from James Allen, where you can acquire the necessary information and buy a GIA-certified stone at an affordable price.
Costco is pretty limited in providing customers with a wide range of choices—this applies to the actual stores and the website.
The choice of engagement ring settings is limited to about 20 options, which is incredibly small compared to bigger sites like Blue Nile or James Allen. Rings are sold as-is, and customers cannot mix or match stones and settings to create their ideal ring.
In all fairness, the quality of the engagement ring settings is well crafted. If you are not too worried about a large variety, you should easily find your desired engagement ring.
The Costco website has dedicated a section to their jewelry and engagement rings. While the filtering options might be abundant, the only significant filters are the price range, clarity, and metal.
However, the absence of certain valuable filtering options does not hinder your search as a small selection of rings is on offer, so it will take you only a little time to find a semi-suited ring.
One bonus of the site is that it allows visitors to compare a selection of 4 engagement rings with each other. It lets you choose your favorites and compare their features, pricing, and pictures.
Please remember that the photos of the engagement rings online are stock photos and not of the ones you will be purchasing.
Costco is hailed for its impeccable customer service and has one of the best return policies. Be that as it may, the fact that there are no experts to help customers make informed decisions raises concerns. While Costco staff is available on the floor, they lack the training for diamond engagement rings.
Return Policy: Costco has a generous return policy for their engagement rings, where customers can return them to one of over 600 warehouses.
Customer Support: Costco staff always wait to help in-store and online. However, knowledge is limited in the engagement ring field.
Costco does not offer financing options but has a Costco-branded Visa card from Citibank. Customers can extend payments by purchasing an engagement ring on the card.
Costco is your first choice for bulk and household purchases, but excluding them from your engagement ring shopping list is a good idea.
While they offer some exquisite diamond engagement rings, you cannot be confident about the quality without a GIA certification.
The jeweler offers the opportunity to return the engagement ring easily if you are unhappy. However, it would be best to base your jeweler on something other than the ease of return since much more goes into creating a worthwhile and trusted jeweler. Unfortunately, Costco falls short in this regard.